


And I've seen your flag on the marble arch

by lubilu17



Series: Where to Now? Where can I go Now? [2]
Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Hélène/Pierre is like the most unhealthy relationship ever, I'm back with more extended metaphors, bc they are all set in the same story, if you've read any of my other stuff you'll know what's about to happen, im sorry anybody who likes Anatole, really I am, referenced domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 06:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12102552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lubilu17/pseuds/lubilu17
Summary: Hélène was a marble statue, carved since birth, perfect, stoic and cold, beautiful with blank eyes. But like all timeless objects there were cracks in the marble, fingerprint shaped bruises wrapped around wrists, thick layers of makeup covering deep circles under eyes, the nights she'd spend in tears, curled up on one of their sofas in one of their many unused rooms. She was a marble statue and marble statues show no emotion, that was something she'd had to learn from a young age. Marble statues don't flinch every time their husband come close to them. Marble statues don't lean into comforting touches. Marble statues don't spend their nights trying to drink away the pain.An alternate version of Pierre and Anatole.





	And I've seen your flag on the marble arch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna apologise before you read this bc it's pure angst. So sorry.

Hélène was a marble statue, carved since birth, perfect, stoic and cold, beautiful with blank eyes. But like all timeless objects there were cracks in the marble, fingerprint shaped bruises wrapped around wrists, thick layers of makeup covering deep circles under eyes, the nights she'd spend in tears, curled up on one of their sofas in one of their many unused rooms. She was a marble statue and marble statues show no emotion, that was something she'd had to learn from a young age. Marble statues don't flinch every time their husband come close to them. Marble statues don't lean into comforting touches. Marble statues don't spend their nights trying to drink away the pain.

Anatole was not a marble statue, no Anatole was a renaissance painting, full of emotion, full of colour, full of life. But, not every painting is perfect, misplaced brush strokes over centuries old canvas, he was childish and immature, the very thing that had got them in this mess in the first place. His misplaced brushstrokes were never physical, taking so much pride in his appearance, knowing that it could be the only thing a person would remember him by.

The Kuragin siblings were art pieces, perfectly crafted for high society, Hélène carved to be the perfect wife, to be an addition to the house, Anatole painted into the perfect young man, the perfect soldier, the perfect prince.

  
Neither of them were their former art pieces now, Natasha and Pierre came and ruined that. Natasha with her beautiful form, dainty voice, pretty white dresses, perfect and poised. Pierre with his lumbering steps, rough fingers, drunken screaming, lusting after a girl even younger that Hélène herself. He's angry, well he's always angry at Hélène for some reason or another. However, for the first time in a long time it is not her he has directed his rage towards, but her younger brother. She can hear their muffled shouting through the wall to Pierre's study.

A scream broke her from her reverie, followed loud crash, causing her to flinch backwards, her back crashing into the wall behind her, the pile of her hair pressing into her head. Then another scream. The loud scream of her brother brought her back to herself. Almost tripping over the edges of her dressing gown, she went against everything her mind was telling her, and pushed open the door to her husband's study.

She screamed.

Anatole with his back pressed to Pierre's desk, her husband lifting a paperweight above his head, bringing it down repeatedly against Anatole's skull, the cracking sound making Hélène want to throw up. Her scream had stopped his actions, dropping the blood covered marble crow to the floor. He brings his hands up towards his face smearing blood down his cheeks and around his mouth, catching in his beard. No it was not the utterly broken way Pierre looked at her that made her scream again, it was Anatole.

Anatole with his perfectly quaffed hair no longer silky or bright blond but matted together and a deep wine red. His formally blue eyes fully red with burst blood vessels. The flesh wounds that scattered his face oozed blood and the entire right side of his face wore a purple-yellow smear of bruise. His lips parting slightly, split down the middle, blood slowly making its way down Anatole's neck pooling in the hollow of his throat.

Swallowing the bile that had risen in her throat, she grabbed a handful of paper of his desk and with shaking hands tried to cover the wounds slightly. She used her left hand to prop her brother up on her arm and pressed the paper to the wounds with her right. Blood immediately soaked through the paper and ink, staining her hands crimson. Her shaking hands felt the rugged breaths from her brothers chest weaken. Another scream ripped it's way out of her throat.

"Come on brother, you made it through a war. You are not allowed to leave me now," her broken whispers met unhearing ears, "You promised me we'd be together forever. We had plans. You can't do this to me now. You can't leave me with him." Her whispers turning to sobs with each word that left her mouth. Her vision was blurring from the tears that pricked at her eyes.

But, oh, there was so much blood - dark crimson, with a discreet, metallic scent. It cascaded across Anatole's skin, right through the her finger tips, staining her skin scarlet, congealing under her previously pristine nails. Her sobs shook her body, jostling her brothers body. What was scarier than even all of the blood was the slowing down of Anatole's breathing, laboured heaving of his chest. At the bottom of her heart Hélène knew he wasn't going to survive the night. After all who could survive when your brother-in-law smashed your head in with a paperweight and the nearest doctor is over two hours away?

With Anatole's head in her lap, cradled by her arms Hélène finally looked up at her husband. Her husband who had almost murdered her brother. Her husband who had not moved in the minutes she had been in the room. Her husband who had wiped his victims blood all over his face. He looked like a monster, covered in blood, still staring down at the bloodied crow paperweight. The irony of having a crow as a paperweight, a single crow never brought good luck to anybody.

They stayed frozen in place, a grotesque tableau, Pierre staring at his chosen weapon with disgust, Hélène with her hand on her brothers chest, her breath held, just waiting. The only thing moving was Anatole's chest rising and falling slowly and shallowly.

Until it didn't.

Hélène's anguished cry tore from her throat, deep and full of sorrow, tears falling freely down her face, landing directly onto Anatole's frozen face. At one point she'd closed his eyes, maybe it was so he didn't see the pain this was all causing his sister, maybe it was so he wasn't staring directly into the eyes of his murderer. Her sobs wrecked her body, broken, hoarse and pained.

The once beautiful and ornate study was now the site of a bloody battle. The deep red carpet now splattered with dark brown stains, almost like wine stains, the papers Hélène had used as makeshift bandages bloodied and smudged, all of Pierre's work gone, ruined by his own stupid decisions, ruined by his blinding anger. The room, once truly beautiful now marked with death and mourning.

Pierre made to step forwards, stumbling over his feet as he reached down to brush Anatole's face with his fingers but his fingers never made it to skin as Hélène flicked away from her husbands hand so violently he managed to drag her brothers corpse with her away from his outstretched hands. All throughout their marriage Hélène had flinched away from him, from his gentle touches in the morning to his rough grasps in the darkness of the club. Now with the look of a spooked deer in her eyes she flinched harder than ever, away from the hands that held the weapon that murdered her brother, the hands that twisted her wrists if she wasn't following fast enough, the hands that roamed her sides at night. He would never touch her again if she could help it.

" _Get out_." Hélène's voice came out in almost a growl, malice seeping into every spoken word "Get out of my house _now_."

As if breaking from a trance Pierre fled the room, almost walking into the doorframe, something Hélène would find comical if it were any other situation. As the door slammed shut behind him Hélène found the strength to scream, shout and rage. Scream in pained anguish at the loss of her closest friend. Shout at the closed door as if Pierre were still in the room. Rage at the gods above who she'd spent days praying to so they would protect her brother and yet he had been destroyed by the man who was supposed to love her. His bloodied corpse still supported by her knees looking like the porcelain dolls he had loved as a child, an old porcelain doll, one that wasn't necessarily beautiful now but had been in the past.

Through all of her raging there was her tears, the tears she'd worked so hard to suppress over her life because marble statues didn't cry, didn't show any emotion.

Hélène was a marble statue, carved since birth, perfect, stoic and cold, beautiful with blank eyes. But like all timeless objects there were cracks in the marble, cracks that were no longer only on the surface, that travelled so deep they cracked open her marble heart, leaving chips of stone in the snow as she trailed down their path, pulling her gloves up her arms, unable to stay in the house anymore. The body covered in a shawl Hélène had been given by their mother, a servant called to take it away. Marble statues were beautiful and perfect but the cracks were too deep for anybody to see her as beautiful anymore, deep grooves stained crimson running up her arms, straight into her heart.

A gold band was left in the pale snow having been ripped off a marble finger.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry again
> 
> All kinds of feedback makes my heart sing.


End file.
